


The Nightingale At Dawn

by Quillori



Category: ANDERSEN Hans Christian - Works, Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Nattergalen | The Nightingale - Hans Christian Andersen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-25
Updated: 2008-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:28:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1633946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/pseuds/Quillori





	The Nightingale At Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyn/gifts).



 

 

The dew lies on the grass at dawn and all is silent but the singing of the birds. The garden, enclosed, is cool and calm, grey in the light of dawn. Starbursts of white elder recall the fading night, small, perfect petals massed in an unnumbered throng. The smooth worn stones that edge the tended path are twined with roses, both stone and rose rooted firm in the rich, dark earth.

Within the garden confines, the dawn air barely stirs a leaf; in the heavy air the branches of the massive yew almost brush the ground. Everywhere are tangled knots of roses, their thorns scratching at the stone. Soft trails of fog brush the white roses, the white elder. In all the garden, the bitter yew-berries are the only colour. 

Everything lies waiting, breath caught in a fragment of eternity. The dark earth doesn't stir beneath its tattered mantle of fog. The smell of soil and leaves overpowers even the thick scent of the roses. The breathless hush stretches on, unending, the scent of rose and rotting mulch so thickly blanketing the narrow ground as to choke the air itself. The old yew tree's twisted roots sink deep and sure into the wormy sod.

The damp mist shrouds the unmoving headstones. Poison swells in bloody beads and drops scarlet from the yew: the path that all must tread is lined with thorns that tear like knives, like hooks. Forever and forever endures the dominion of Death, and heavy lies the cloying mud that fills the corpse's mouth. Coiled stems twist up from rotting flesh, the pale flowers drooping high above the putrid grave. 

Decay hungers for new flesh, devouring breath and blood and soul. All around lie scattered shards, fragments of bone, white as the elder flowers. How cold, how still, the graveyard lies! The mourning dew falls from the dead air and all is silent but the singing of a single bird.

* * *

"The nightingale sang on. It sang of the quiet churchyard where white roses grow, where the elder flowers make the air sweet, and where the grass is always green, wet with the tears of those who are still alive. Death longed for his garden. Out through the windows drifted a cold gray mist, as Death departed." from Hans Christian Anderson, _Nattergalen_ , trans Jean Hersholt

 


End file.
